In Hempstead Town, sparks fly over campaign donations

Daily Point

Scianablo promises to return campaign donation

Should candidates pay attention to who pays for their campaigns?

One of several contentious moments between Republican Hempstead Town Supervisor John Ferretti and his Democratic challenger, Joe Scianablo, during their Newsday editorial board endorsement meeting this week was when Ferretti accused Scianablo of accepting money from a felon.

Campaign finance filings with the New York State Board of Elections show former Nassau County Legis. David Denenberg gave $150 to Scianablo's campaign in May 2025 when Scianablo first ran against Ferretti and lost. Denenberg gave another $75 to Scianablo this past July.

Ferretti said Scianablo promised to return the donation from last year but hasn't. "If you're going to return it, return it, and ... if you said you were going to return it, don't accept more."

Scianablo said he would. "Thank you for bringing that up," he said. "... I agree with you. I do not want to be taking money from a felon."

Back in 2015, Denenberg pleaded guilty to eight felony counts of mail fraud for accepting $2.3 million from a law firm client and not doing work, according to a Newsday news story at the time. Denenberg, a Democrat, resigned his elected position representing Nassau's 19th Legislative District.

The issue arose after Newsday's editorial board asked Ferretti about a $5,000 check he received on Sept. 18 from Ocean County Strong, a New Jersey PAC that, according to an online news outlet, is funded by developers. Ocean County Strong also gave $5,000 to the Nassau County Republican Committee on Aug. 31, according to campaign finance filings.

After saying he would return the donations from Denenberg, Scianablo said, "... but maybe we should look into the $5,000 ..."

Ferretti told the editorial board he has a lot of support and has been able to raise "a lot of money."

When asked about the Ocean County Strong contribution, Ferretti said: "I'm not familiar with that company off the top of my head," adding, "I can look into that. I'm not aware of any project ... that they are proposing."

Ferretti earlier told the editorial board that "there's no shortage of developers" who want to build in Hempstead. "It's not like we need to find them," he said, adding that it was town government's job to "work with them as long as it's within the character of the suburban neighborhood that we live in."

According to the most recent campaign finance filings, Ferretti has $265,000 in his campaign account and Scianablo has $73,000.

— Mark Nolan mark.nolan@newsday.com

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Reference Point

Back to the 1958 gubernatorial race

Amid another heated gubernatorial race in New York 68 years ago, Newsday's editorial board was trying to solve "The Big Mystery" with voter registration numbers, as its headline said.

"It would be great if anybody knew what this meant," the board wrote on Oct. 14, 1958, about voter registration being up 8.5% in New York City and up 17% in Nassau County from the gubernatorial race four years prior.

The editorial board quipped that since "Both Republicans and Democrats find the results reassuring," maybe candidates Republican Nelson Rockefeller and incumbent Democrat W. Averell Harriman could forgo "that last-minute rostrum-thumping and viewing-with-alarm," and voters "could go to the polls on Nov. 4 in an atmosphere of dead calm."

The editorial went on to extrapolate that the surge in voter registration could mean that New York City Democrats were rallying the faithful around Harriman. Yet the board noted it could also mean that independents were "turning out in preparation for a Rockefeller landslide."

"But elections are tricky things, and figuring them out in advance is rarely profitable," the board said. "The important point is that a lot of voters in this state seem to have positive feelings, which will be registered by a flick of a tab and the pull of a lever in the voting booths the first Tuesday in November."

That surge in suburban voter registration that 1958 experienced is not happening today. As of February 2026, total voter registration in Nassau County barely ticked up, increasing just 0.6% from 1,067,597 voters registered in 2022 to 1,068,308 in 2026, while in Suffolk County it was up only 2% from 1,109,125 to 1,133,206. Total registration in New York City is up just 3% since 2022.

In 1958, the increase ultimately played out in favor of Rockefeller, who defeated incumbent Harriman 54.74%-44.71% in a race that became known as the "battle of millionaires" and defied the national Democratic wave that year. Rockefeller went on to serve four consecutive terms as New York's governor.

Weeks before the 1958 election, the editorial board called the right to vote "a precious item" and concluded, "It's good so many New York Staters value it."

— Amanda Fiscina-Wells amanda.fiscina-wells@newsday.com

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